North and South of Happiness (a Phan story)
by converse128
Summary: There's no point in sugar-coating it. Dan will be dead in ten months, twelve if he is lucky. Even though he may be dying that doesn't mean Dan doesn't want to achieve his life goals. Dan's life goals? Finding his point of existence and falling in love. Warnings: depression, suicidal thoughts, self-loathing thoughts, disease, and death
1. Chapter 1

**Song for this chapter: High & Low- EZA**

I always thought I was an open person, sharing my emotions, thoughts and opinions with those around me, but I learned different by the ripe age of sixteen. It's easy to share what your feeling on the inside when all that exists is sunshine and blue skies; storm clouds and swirling hurricanes is a little different.

I, Dan Howell, am a lot of things, and sad just happens to be one of them. I don't quite understand the point of existence, specifically my own. I don't like the way I look or the way that my body has decided to operate. I don't like school, homework, teachers, or even most of the kids in my grade. I don't like hospitals, needles, doctors, or even any medical terms. I hate silence that is only filled with the worked sounds of my lungs, but I also despise any social interaction if it isn't with my close friends. I hate moths, trees, and the dark, yet I only seem to live at night. In summary, I hate a lot of things. The only things I don't really hate are the people sitting around me at this table, and the chocolate malt in my hand.

"Dan?" My friend Chris breaks me from my lost daze, "You in there?"

To my displeasure I end the staring contest I was having with the front bumper of PJ's car and turn back towards my friends to engage in conversation. The majority of the light-hearted group seems to be laughing at some cheesy pun Louise just made, with the exception of Phil. Looking around the table I take notice of the order of the seats, something only my brain would think to do. On my right is Chris, next to him is PJ, on the other side of PJ is Louise, and to my left is Phil. My eyes dropping onto Phil, I notice his wrinkled face and nervous eyes, "Are you okay Dan?" he asks under his breath so the others won't hear.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I blatantly lie.

But maybe it isn't that far from the truth. Anymore I feel as if I'm lost at sea, trapped between a coast of happiness and a coast of numbness. Most days I spend just off the coast of the numbness island, but when I'm with my friends I can use binoculars to see just the coast of "Okay" nation.

"Are you fine," Phil places air quotations around the word fine, and then drops his hands back to his lap, "Or are you actually feeling happy?"

When I really thought about Phil's question I decided to pull out the map. According to the nearly-impossible to navigate paper I was reaching the national waters of anxiety volcano. Even if I know that I'm not okay, should I really share this with Phil? Despite the fact that this emotional cruise around the troubling sea is nearly endless I decide that it wouldn't hurt to admit the truth to one of my best friends at least once. "Just feeling kind of nervous is all."

With my confession Phil looked up and peered around the table of our friends until settling his eyes back on me. Keeping his eyes trained on me, Phil began to reach the hand that wasn't holding his ice cream out to my free hand resting on my own leg. As Phil picked up my hand my heart began to race. Physical contact often intimidated me, and I began to wonder if Phil's intentions are going to be counterproductive.

"I hate Ms. Smith, she doesn't even teach us anything in that class," Phil and me's other friends continued on with their conversation, barely even paying attention to us two taller boys sitting across from them.

Phil's eyes met mine as if to say, "Is this okay?" and before I could think about it too much, I nodded my head. The soothing look of Phil's blue eyes allowed me to relax and squeeze Phil's hand back for reassurance.

This was okay.

Physical contact with one of your good friends is okay.

Relaxing into Phil's touch I felt his heart rate steady and my breathing even out. I released the tension from my shoulders and suddenly everything felt okay. No longer was I anxious for no apparent reason, I was sailing back towards the happiness resort found on "Okay" nation, and I think Phil could tell.

"So, ummm do you guys want to hear about how I turned down Chloe today?" I was immediately snapped out of my thoughts with PJ's words.

"What the fuck PJ?" Louise practically jumped across the table to PJ, making uncomfortably close eye contact with the confessional friend. "Chloe asked you out? You turned her down? The dance is coming up! You could have had a date!" Louise rambled on enough for all of us.

"Louise you might want to calm down and shut your mouth so that PJ can explain!" Phil said after turning to me to roll his eyes and squeeze my hand once again.

"Right, okay. Now spill!" Louise shouted, but returned to her seat while doing so.

PJ looked around the group nervously, we weren't exactly a group of friends with a lot of experience in dating. PJ had had an older girlfriend for a while, but the fact of the matter was they just didn't work together. Other than PJ I was the only one to ever have dated, if you could call what I had with Bailey a relationship. Neither Bailey nor I had ever dated anyone before, and were shy in making any calls in the relationship, overall leading to a loss of chemistry. To say I had been farther with Phil (when he accidentally swung his arm past my crotch while flailing limbs in excitement) than I ever got with Bailey wouldn't be a lie. Moving his hand around a bit before beginning, PJ finally gave us a recount of his day.

"I feel like there isn't too much to say." He paused for a brief second, "I was walking back from lunch by myself, cause all of you losers are in a different lunch, and she just kind of walked up to me and asked if I would go on a date with her." PJ seemed to have finished his story, all of our faces mildly disappointed, before he added, "And to specify, she asked if I wanted to go mini golfing sometime."

I looked around at the faces of my three other friends, all of them just as equally horrified as me. Chloe Clarke was possibly one of the hottest girls in the school, and yet, PJ had turned her down. "You have some serious explaining to do Peej." Chris spoke up.

"I just don't feel like I have enough time to be dating anybody right now unless it is Kylie Johnson." In almost perfect unison we all rolled our eyes at PJ's logic. Some crush on the most popular girl at the school wouldn't have stopped me from saying yes to one date with Chloe, even if I was pining for somebody else. What could one date hurt? That was like passing up a once in a lifetime opportunity, especially if you're me.

"But see the best part is that I turned her down by making a really bad Nemo joke."

PJ was met with four blank faces staring back at him. A Nemo joke to turn down anybody else would have been hilarious, but this was Chloe Clarke we were talking about.

"What was it?" Louise finally asked.

"I said, 'There really aren't that many fish in the sea if you think about, some eat others. That being said I'm afraid you aren't the Marlin to my Dory, so I'm gonna have to just keep on swimming.'"

As soon as the words left PJ's mouth I found myself retrieving my hand from Phil's to hold my stomach as I doubled over in laughter. PJ is an idiot, but a funny one nonetheless. After calming myself down slightly I looked to my left to find Phil with his eyes crinkled up at the edges from the wide smile he wore on his soft face. Catching his breath and reaching my gaze Phil and I held eye contact for several seconds before I finally looked back towards my other friends.

Eye contact scared me.

I was always so scared that if somebody looked long and hard they might find something about me they didn't expect, something to make them want to leave. I wasn't scared that Phil was going to stare into my soul, hell if he did that maybe he would find my feelings for him. I was always so terrified of letting the blinds, so forcefully held open, snap close so that all the light shining through faded. Nobody needed to know that I felt dead inside.

"Was my response a little out of line? Did I go too far." PJ asked after everyone seemed to calm down.

"Maybe a little, but it's okay. I mean it's not like you ruined any of our chances of going out with her or anything." Chris said, his voice ringing with passive aggressiveness.

Picking up my phone from the table we were sat at I checked the time to see that I was supposed to be home in less than twenty minutes. "Hey Phil if I'm taking you home then we need to go ahead and leave."

With everybody else sighing, Phil and I began walking to my car and waved bye to our three other friends sitting around the ice cream shoppe table. Unlocking the door and sliding into the driver's seat I stole a glance at Phil and turned the music down a little bit so that we could talk.

"That was fun." Phil simply mentioned, his body in the adjacent seat turned towards mine.

"Yeah it was, PJ is a complete noob to turn down Chloe Clarke though." Phil chuckled at my statement, his laughter warming my heart. "He really is though! No matter who you are, you should never pass up an opportunity to go on a date with Chloe!"

I carefully debated my next words in my head, silence filling the car in my absence of a response. "Ummmmm...yeah." Phil subconsciously said to fill the silence. Phil hated silence, somebody always had to be saying something. Deciding to just go for it, I asked, "Do you think there is a different reason PJ didn't say yes?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I don't know, maybe he doesn't like Chloe, because..." I trailed off at the end of my sentence, too worried of what Phil was going to think about me if I continued.

"If you're asking if I think PJ is gay, the answer is no. He is the straightest person I know!"

I peeked a glance in Phil's direction as I giggled to myself. After only three years of friendship Phil knew me so well. "I know he is straight as a flagpole! I just… It's Chloe fucking Clarke! Even if I were gay and not bi I would appreciate the looks of that girl!"

Phil and I both lost it. This was why I cherished my friendship with Phil so much. Phil was the one friend I had that I completely and undoubtedly be myself with, he knows everything about me. Despite the fact that Phil was one of my newer friends, meeting him at the beginning of high school, unlike my other friends I had met in elementary school, it was so incredibly easy to be myself with him.

Once again moving my stare from the road to the best friend sitting in my passenger seat I took in the way Phil's eyes scrunched up at the sides when he laughed, the way his cheeks were spread wide enough to reach his eyes. Phil's hair was perfectly plastered across his forehead in a smooth, black fringe. Making quick eye contact I took notice of the way that the afternoon sun shone on the blue of Phil's pupils to make glittering specks of yellow and green appear. There is no denying that Phil Lester is a beautiful human being.

"So, speaking of sexuality, any updates on yours?"

Phil rolled his eyes at my bluntness. "I'm still straight Dan, sorry I won't be able to go cute-boy spotting with you at the mall." I laughed along at the joke, but what people present on the outside isn't always what they feel on the inside.

Inside I felt myself drifting towards hopelessness sandbar. Phil was great and whenever I day dreamed of having a boyfriend my mind always lead back to him. But the fact of the matter is that he is straight, despite everybody else's questioning for him. I have no more than ten months to live and I plan on doing everything in my power to make the few things I don't want to miss out on in life happen. I want to kiss somebody, hold somebody, say "I love you" to somebody before I die, yet the only person I desire is out of my reach.

 **Thanks for reading! Please review and follow!**

 **Alysha x**


	2. Chapter 2

**Song for this chapter: Tongue Tied- Grouplove**

History is a pointless subject, a misconception that allows people to believe that if they really try hard enough they will never entirely be forgotten, and that's a lie. There will be a day when there isn't anybody left to remember who Albert Einstein, Aristotle, and Plato are, won't be the books and records to teach new, struggling generations of the icons that lived on this Earth. One day everybody on this planet is going to die, and eventually the sun will burn out and every moment leading up to that second in time will be for nothing. And yes, I do understand that we can't repeat history, and that we should learn from our ancestors' mistakes, but that doesn't change the fact that I won't make it past the walls surrounding me at this moment in time. So really, what's the point of me being here and listening to Mrs. Apple ramble on about the French losing yet another war?

To make history even worse, it was one of the only subjects I didn't have with any of my friends, one of the my only classes I didn't have with Phil. When it came to school Phil and I were practically the same person, recieving all the same grades, except maybe I'd get a 48 on a math test when he got a 50, only to be made up with my 50 on a paper when he would get a 48. It pretty much always evened out.

Looking down at the doodles I had subconsciously been drawing on my paper I appreciated the intertwining lines that had begun as tree branches and molded into a web of a confusing pattern. There were only fifteen minutes left in class, yet I felt like I would die if I had to stay seated in the cold chair for a mere minute more. While my anxiousness was most likely due to the extreme boredom I felt in the class, it could also be due to the fact that it was Friday, and Friday means game night with Louise, Chris, PJ, and Phil.

Between the five of us we all took turns hosting game and pizza nights each Friday night after school. Game nights included Mario Kart, ridiculous board games, pizza, cosmic brownies, ice cream, and all of the week's latest gossip. Nobody in our group of friends really cared what all was happening with our peers but Louise and Chris were complete sluts for the latests rumors and inside information.

Drawing myself away from my own thoughts of the upcoming night, I dragged my eyes across the clock and saw that surprisingly enough, there were only two minutes left in the hour. Everybody around began packing up their bags, the sounds of zippers and rustling drowning out Mrs. Apple's overly-perky voice. Just as I threw my lumbering bag over my shoulder and stood up the bell rang, signifying the beginning of a rumbling stampede to lunch.

Making my way into the lunchroom I took note that I was the first of my friends to arrive and I sat in our normal spot, close to the corner of the room. I was only a few bites into my peanut butter and banana sandwich when I spotted Phil walking towards the table with a wide smile on his face. Pulling out the chair next to mine the blue-eyed boy scoffed at my sandwich, "Ewww, why would you ruin a perfectly good sandwich with bananas?"

"Bananas are good, I don't know what you're talking about Mr. Cheese is Only Good On Pizza."

Phil shot daggers at me for a few seconds, to which I stared back, before he dropped his gaze and responded, "Shut up."

As Phil began to eat his own meal, he started by eating the cookies his mom had packed him, our other friends arrived and dropped their bags with grunts, leaving the table to go get their lunches from the cafeteria. Predictable as ever, it wasn't long before Phil tried to spark up conversation, insistent that silence was never acceptable. "So how was your history class?"

"Boring as ever," I sighed dramatically, "I don't even understand the point of that class."

"History can be fascinating!" Phil said excitedly, proceeding to whisper under his breath, "Not really, but you know."

Knowing for a fact that history was Phil's least favorite subject I gave him my best unamused face and tried a little harder to make some conversation, "So why did you look so happy when you were walking over here? Somebody ask you to the winter dance or something?"

The black-haired boy screwed his eyebrows at that and scoffed, "Haha, you're funny Dan, but no, I'm just happy that it's Friday."

Not really knowing what to say other than, "Me too," I nodded my head and greeted our other friends as they sat down.

The rest of lunch was filled with complaints of school and both dirty and punny jokes from Chris. Towards the end of the period, all five of us agreed to meet at my house around six that night to begin our traditional game night. Grudgingly, I headed to my next class which was math with Chris and Phil. Despite having the rest of my honor classes for the remainder of the day I didn't mind being in the hell-hole of a school because I would be with my friends. Still though, I couldn't bring myself to put much effort into my work with the looming stormclouds of inevitable death floating through my conscious.

. . .

It was five forty-nine when the doorbell first rang and I was greeted by the smiling face of Phil. "I see you went ahead and changed into your pyjamas?" I asked while my eyes wandered up and down Phil's body before realizing my actions and jerking my head back up to meet his eyes. My actions seemed to go unnoticed by Phil as he rolled his eyes and stepped into the house. In Phil's arms he carried what appeared to be a cookie cake. I had never loved this boy more than right now. Reaching out for the cake I brushed my fingers across Phil's hand and I was reminded of the night at the ice cream shoppe and the comfort and warmth that Phil's hand had brought me.

Pushing my romantic thoughts for my friend aside I made my way up the carpeted stairs of my home with a clumsy noodle following me. As soon as Phil stepped into my plain, aesthetically pleasing room he noticed the candle that was lit on my bookshelf.

"Dan! Did you buy a sugar cookie scented candle?" Phil said with excitement leaking from his voice.

"Calm down Phil," I laughed, "It's just a candle, I actually stole it from my mom."

Phil nodded his head in approval as my heart swelled, it's always the smallest things that make Phil happy. I turned towards Phil as he sat down in the hammock hanging from my ceiling, his favorite place to sit in my room, and looked towards his eyes. Phil didn't see me staring as he was taking in the simplistic decor of my room, but I could see that he truly looked happy. Seeing Phil so effortlessly content made jealously bubble up in my stomach and poke at my sides, I so wish that I could feel the joy that Phil possess without even trying. The world really isn't fair sometimes.

I was broke out of my daze as the doorbell sounded again. With both Phil and I tromping down the stairs we were met with all three of our other friends standing at the door. Opening the door and pulling them inside I snatched the pizza from Chris's hands and only stopped at the kitchen to grab some plates and napkins before making a mad dash for my own bedroom. Knowing what I was doing, the rest of the teenagers went up to my room and had all the food set out for devouring. With the food placed in the middle of the circle we formed, I began playing some YouTube videos for background noise as we ate, all too hungry to be bothered to talk.

By the time we were on our fifth video we had all finished the pizza and had already started eating some of the various sweets brought to the game night.

"Guys we just ate two large pizzas between the five of us. That's the most we have ever eaten at one time, my god." Chris said in exasperation.

"You helped just as much as the rest of us." I noted.

Chris huffed at my comment and reached across the circle to pull a cosmic brownie from the box sat next to Louise.

"So what should we do tonight?" Phil asked, once again refusing to allow silence to lull between us comrades. "Should we play videogames? Board games? Is it a truth or dare kind of night? What should we do?"

The entirety of the group chuckled at Phil's suggestion of truth or dare, us group of friends weren't exactly ones to play typical party games. The idea led me to thinking about what we would even ask as truths with this group of people. We all knew nearly every secret about each other and the thought of thinking up something that the four people sitting around me wouldn't know sounded nearly impossible. Not to mention our dares would probably be to lick your own elbow or some stupid shit like that.

With the weight of Phil's question lingering in the air we all glanced around at each other. I could tell just by looking at my group that we were all exhausted from a tiring week of school and other activities. _Finally an instance where everybody knows how I feel all the time._

I noticed the way that Phil's eyes skirted around the circle and could read that he was getting nervous that nobody actually wanted to be here. Not that we didn't want to be with our friends, but a bed sounded awfully comfortable. Phil's eyes landed on me and I blurted thoughtless words out of my mouth, "Let's try playing truth or dare."

Louise, Chris, and PJ all nodded their heads, looking less tired now that the mental exhaustion of making a decision was taken away. "I'll go first then." Phil said confidently.

"Dan, truth or dare?"

I hesitated as I thought of the potential things that Phil could make me do or say, none of which seemed that threatening. "Truth I guess."

Phil seemed to think for a second, obviously not having a truth picked out, but only a dare. I wonder what he was planning on making me do if I had chosen dare. "If you could go on a date with one person in our school who would it be?"

 _You._

I pushed my first instinct away and really thought about who the most attractive person in our school was, other than Phil. "Chloe Clarke." I said while turning to smirk at PJ. The whole group laughed at my choice and pointed their fingers at PJ as they chuckled.

"Okay Dan, you're turn to choose somebody and ask them truth or dare."

"Louise, truth or dare?"

Louise didn't hesitate at all before responding with a quick, "Dare."

"I dare you to slap my face."

Louise's face looked horrified for a second before an evil smirk passed her lips and she got on her knees to crawl over to where I was sat. The blonde girl raised her eyebrows as if to ask  
"You ready?" and once I nodded my head she drew her hand back and whipped it across my left cheek.

"Ow! That really hurt!' I said half-jokingly and half-seriously.

The rest of my friends laughed, although Phil didn't laugh nearly as hard as the other two, as Louise shouted, "You're the one who dared me to!'

"I know, I know." I mumbled under my breath before calling out PJ. "Truth or dare Peej?"

"I'll go with truth after that whole incident."

I hesitated for a moment before settling on a question I had been curious about for months. "When you and Abigail broke up, who broke up with who?"

Abigail had been PJ's girlfriend for nearly five months last year and it was a mystery to all of us why they had broken up at the end of the school year. Although the question I asked was something everybody had been to afraid to ask, I couldn't help myself, I wasn't going to die without knowing the reason PJ seethed every time he saw Abigail. Looking around the group PJ seemed to be debating whether or not it was worth telling the truth to his group of friends.

"Fuck it." the curly haired boy muttered under his breath. "I broke up with her. She is a complete and utter bitch to be honest."

We all stared back at PJ, that hadn't exactly been what we were expecting, for months now we all just assumed that the reason our green-eyed friend had never shared anything about the breakup was because Abigail had broke up with him, and he was too embarrassed to admit it.

PJ seemed as if he wanted to avoid any questions, despite the fact that all of us were too nervous to intrude on the breakup anymore. With tension high in the air, PJ took it upon himself to move the game along.

"Chris!" PJ said enthusiastically as he turned to the boy sitting next to him.

"I choose dare." Chris said, beating PJ to the question of what category he would choose.

"I dare you to lick the bottom of Phil's foot!"

"What are we five PJ?" Louise asked with obvious annoyance in her voice, knowing Louise she was probably hoping that the game would get at least slightly sexual at some point.

"I'll do it!" Chris jumped up from his spot on the ground, maybe just a little too excited for what he was about to do.

I peeked a glance at Phil, wondering if he even consented to any of this. Based off the furrowed eyebrows and slight frown on Phil's face I could tell that he wasn't looking forward to what was about to happen. Without even hesitating Chris sat back down in front of Phil and pulled Phil's leg out from under him so that he could better access his foot. Once Phil's foot was in Chris's hand Chris placed the taller boy's foot directly in front of his face and glanced around the body part to meet Phil's eyes.

"Do you have any foot fungus I should know about?"

All four of the other people sitting in the room made disgusted noises at Chris's question and Louise took the opportunity of Chris's confused look around to push him into Phil's foot. The whole front of Chris's face collided with the bottom of Phil's foot and Chris only hesitated a moment before licking from Phil's toe to his heel.

By this point PJ was gagging in the corner, Louise hiding her face in her arms, Phil wiping his foot on the ground, and Chris heading to the kitchen to get some water to rinse his mouth out. As for me, I stayed in my spot and stared at where the event just took place. "I think Chris just made out with Phil's foot." My words seemed to catch everybody's attention as they began to laugh a little.  
"Chris isn't that the farthest you have gone with kissing someone?"

My last comment sent everybody rolling with laughter and soon enough all us, minus a grumpy looking Chris, were sprawled out on the ground holding our stomachs. I would probably pay for that comment later.

"Guess it's Phil's turn then." Chris said sarcastically to get us all to shut up. We really shouldn't have laughed that hard, it's not like any of us had been farther with somebody than what Chris had. "Truth or dare Phil?"

"I'll go with dare I suppose."

I was slightly surprised by Phil's choice, he normally would have chosen truth. I couldn't help but wonder if there was something that Phil could be hiding that he was afraid he would have to reveal if he asked for a truth.

"I dare you to kiss Dan, on the mouth…" Chris said with a smug look plastered on his face.

My heart began to race with Chris's words. There was no possible way that my best friend just asked me to kiss one of my other good friends, who also happened to be my crush, on the lips in front of my other friends. Thoughts raced themselves around my head and I could feel myself start to get dizzy from each of the possible outcomes that my brain conjured up.

 _What if Phil didn't want to kiss me? What if Phil_ did _want to kiss me? What if we ended up kissing and we leaned the same way? What if one of us laughed while it was happening? What if we kiss and I like it, but Phil doesn't? What if our other friends sitting in the room judged us for something that we would do while kissing?_

Chris was evil, yes I probably deserved the dare after the comment I made, but Phil didn't, and Chris knew that neither of us had had our first kiss yet. My stomach tied itself in a knot as I stole a glance around the circle to see uncomfortable stares from Louise and PJ as they scanned back and forth between Phil and I, every once in awhile sending Chris a face as if to say, "Why the fuck did you just say that."

Hiding behind my eyelashes I stole a glance at Phil to see him nervously twiddling his thumbs and biting his lip as if he was deep in concentration. Not knowing what to do with myself I tugged at my sleeves and began peering at everything around my room except for the ebony haired man sitting to my left. Scanning my room, I took a mental note that the sugar cookie scented candle was still burning on the bookshelf, the wooden wick eliciting only the faintest of sounds amongst the overwhelming quiet in the room.

As if his voice was the sun to a long-winter's ice Phil finally spoke, "Dan I love you, but I'm not going to have my first kiss be in some stupid truth or dare game." Phil seemed to judge the expression on my face, one that I'm sure only read a mix of relief and gratitude with a hint of disappointment, before continuing. "I'll gladly kiss you on the cheek though!"

I smiled, the corners of my mouth reaching the edges of my eyes for once, my dimples prominent, as I shyly nodded my head in Phil's direction. Our other three friends finally looked up from their laps, which they had found very interesting once Phil had begun talking, and smiled at Phil's solution to the awkwardness that previously encompassed the room.

Before I could even tell what was happening I found Phil only inches from my face and then suddenly his lips were pressed against my cold skin. The warm kiss made my insides explode and my cheeks heat up. Phil was so light and caring with his kiss and I didn't know if I could actually handle the older man's mouth on my face. As cliche as it may sound I could feel the sparks fly like a fountain on the Fourth of July. God, if Phil's lips just on my cheek felt that great I couldn't imagine any other sort of intimacy with my blue-eyed friend, just the thought made me want to explode with contentedness.

Still with a smile on my face and my eyes unfocused I spoke to the whole group, "I think we should just play Mario Kart now." My voice was slightly higher than normal due to my sustained shock.

"Yeah I think that might be a good idea." Louise said whilst scanning the group in front of her.


End file.
